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Diablo 3 Now Restricts New Players To Starter Edition For 3 Days

In what can be explained only as another attempt to prove how the always-online DRM screwed Diablo 3’s gameplay experience, Blizzard has decided that from now on new purchasers of the game won’t have access to its full content for 3 days after the purchase.

During the probation period, the new players will be limited to the content available in the game’s free starter edition. This means that they are limited to playing Act 1 only, with a level cap of 13, without global play and without access to the auction house.

The new policy only affects purchasers of the digital download version of the game. “Digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions,” the company explained on its support page. “We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone's play experience.”

“The delay is no longer than three days, and is often much quicker than that.”

As far as we know, no other online game has ever implemented such a waiting period; not even Blizzard’s own World of WarCraft. We don’t really see why this approval period is required in a game that should’ve been offline in the first place.

The best petition out there is do not buy the game. I am talking about blizzard in general. stop your wow account. when they ask why tell them its because of the drm in diablo. lets completely boycott blizzard until they change. I am also boycotting activision games since they are one in the same now.

say FCUK! to blizzard for this move! this will make people angry. id say, burn their games. give friend a copy. fcuck for fooling around with genuine buyer. people who buy the game will stuck with trial game? with limited game play? this is fcuk up.

Teen rage detected. Out of all the moves blizzard tried to pull off with D3 this is the only one thats not bad at all. This evaluation period (thats what it is) is important to stop bots and other sorts of exploiters from getting back into the game after getting banned. It must be done because theres a real money auction house, people wouldnt want to get screwed over when they're spending actual money instead of gold coins.

Blizzard has announced a raft of restrictions that will apply to purchasers of Diablo III from digital distribution services - and admitted that a bug is restricting some buyers still further.

Diablo III is unique in the action role-playing game series as being the first version to require an always-on internet connection, even for offline play. Introduced to curb piracy, the feature has left Blizzard facing criticism for not-infrequent server outages that render the game completely unplayable when the servers are overloaded.

The introduction of an auction house service, which allows players to trade in-game virtual items for real-world cash and vice-versa, has led to Blizzard upping the security - and it's doing that by introducing temporary restrictions for buyers of the downloadable version.

'For security reasons and to help ensure the integrity of the game and auction house service, players who purchase the digital version of Diablo III may have to wait until payment verification is complete before they can access certain game features,' Blizzard confirmed in a statement to press today. 'While most payments are approved and restrictions are lifted within a day, in some cases it can take up to 72 hours to complete this process.'

Those who have purchased a digital downloadable copy of the game will find themselves unable to access public multiplayer games, unable to make purchases or sales through the auction house for real-world money or in-game gold, unable to trade items or drop items for other players to pick up, unable to chat in public or game channels, and unable to customise messages sent as part of a friend request. Players will also be unable to access the Global Play feature until their payment has been verified.

'Again, we want to be perfectly clear that these are temporary restrictions (often lifted within a day and at most 72 hours) associated with digital purchases for the protection of players,' Blizzard added. 'We appreciate player feedback and will continue to evaluate the best methods for ensuring a positive game experience for everyone.'

While that's a fairly hefty list of restrictions, some players are finding their games locked down even further. 'As an unintended consequence of these security measures, players who purchase the game digitally after patch 1.0.3 are temporarily being capped at level 13 and not able to proceed beyond Act I,' Blizzard admitted. 'We are working to correct this as soon as possible and will provide another update when we have more details to share.'

"Introduced to curb piracy" - This line invalidates your post. DRM never was and still is not meant to stop piracy. Don't believe what companies say so blindly, they say its to stop piracy because they can't openly declare war on retail stores. So what's DRM for? What is the one thing DRM is really effective against? Used game sales, and surprinsingly (for you I assume) devs and distributors hate those because they dont make a penny out of 'em. So why read such a long post when the first few lines clearly show you are very short sighted? Answer: theres no reason. TL;DR

there , wasn`t that simple ?
problem is, if you agree you`re the minority like me and we simply don`t count.
sure we vent (bitch), the company knows we do. they don`t care. it`s a huge game that sold loads of copies.
oh and captcha isn`t an issue, the links to those `top 10` virus laden websites *is*.

Megagames used to be cool, I have been coming here since late late 90's, so yeah been a fan of the site since just about the begining.
But as of the last 2 years, it seems to been hiring like, (not sure how to explain it) hardcore liberal typish loons or, 99 percenters of the gaming world, really people who have no clue and just complain to get in the spot light, not much if any knowledge on any of the things going on in most subjects here within. I've had thoughts if some of these new writers past couple years are even gamers at all.
I really do hope they get some of the old staff back, or at the very least get rid of these kool-aid drinkers they have been bringing in, time to thin out the heard so to speak.

Ok, let me explain slowly for the slow folk. Diablo 3 was originally intended to be an MMO, it was developed for a few years then blizzard decided it was no longer going to be an MMO, the developers didnt like this and quit to start their own company (the company that made hellgate:london), meanwhile blizzard scrapped the MMO D3 as they hired new devs (by scrapped I mean they got rid of everything that was developed so far) and started from scratch. So to conclude this, the current game we know as Diablo 3 was NEVER intended to be an MMO, the one that was is long gone and we will never get to see a single line of code that belonged to it.

AHAHAHAHHAHA the bad news just keeps rolling in, this is so hillarious. Yes, more DRM, keep fisting your fanbase Blizzard and listen to those fanboys squeal! Seriously though, I hope people continue to make a big deal out of everything Blizzard does. Maybe that'll help delay the inevitable all DRM gaming industry that is ahead of us.